Talk:Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment

Napoleonic rifle units, arms and uniforms

A small point but worth making as it concerns a common misconception: ‘Camouflage,’ an early C20th term from the French refers to use of disruptive patterns in line and texture to disguise the outline of equipment, troop positions, and on occasion individual soldiers such as snipers, to conceal them from enemy observation.

On the other hand, the use of green or brown uniforms in Europe and North America dates back to at least the mid-C18th. Rather than 'an attempt', these were indeed effective aids to concealment for skirmishers and other troops involved in bush fighting. Their arms and tactics predated by fifty years or so the rifle-armed troops of the Napoleonic wars who were but one stage in the development of modern infantry.

It’s also worth pointing out that the [60th] King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the 60th Royal Americans were the same regiments, the former being the post-war iteration of the later, created in 1816.

For a more accurate reference I propose:

'While most infantry in the British Army wore the red coat for much of the nineteenth century and were armed with smoothbore muskets until the 1850s, during the Napoleonic wars regiments of rifle-armed infantry were formed, clothed in green uniforms to aid concealment in the field. Operating as skirmishers, men of the 60th Royal Americans and 95th Rifles Regiment, performed sterling work throughout the Peninsular War and the Waterloo campaign in 1815.'

JF42 (talk) 20:48, 13 June 2020 (UTC)